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Update: Decision over fate of two Dallas Love Field gates due by Friday

Update: We may have a decision on Dallas Love Field gates by week’s end

The Dallas City Council wrapped up its discussion of the Dallas Love Field gates Wednesday without anyone expressing support for one airline or the other.

The members appeared willing to kick the issue to City Manager A.C. Gonzales, who told them that a decision is at hand within a few days, probably.

“My target is to come to a conclusion by the end of the week,” Gonzalez said during a brief discussion after the council emerged from a lengthy executive session on the great gate debate.

The gates are now leased to American Airlines. But American has agreed to divest them to Virgin America, per American’s settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice.

American’s lease with the city says it can sublease the gates to another carrier unless there is a compelling reason not to approve the sublease. The lease says the city manager must approve a sublease. American and Virgin America have signed a sublease, the Department of Justice has approved it and now Gonzalez must rule.

“I want A.C. to know that one, this is your responsibility. As our city manager, you’re dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s,” Council member Dwaine Caraway said.

“And to the citizens of Dallas, this is transparency. You have kept this transparent. You’ve kept everybody abreast. You’ve done this in the open. I do think the executive session we had was very fruitful and brought all of us to the same speed at the same time with all the information you had,” Caraway said.

Council member Philip Kingston, who made a brief attempt to table the matter permanently before the executive session, repeated his comments that the city contractually has to approve the Virgin America sublease.

“I’m glad we’re at the end of this discussion. A.C. I hope the direction is crystal clear at this point. Our obligation as the city of Dallas is to live up to the terms of the contract we signed. This is simple. This one is easy,” Kingston said.

He called the attention spent on the issue “a pretty profound waste of time.”

He also criticized an outside consultant’s study which concluded that Southwest Airlines offered the most benefits to Dallas if it got the gates.

“I’m concerned about that study because I think it represents profoundly backward-looking thinking,” Kingston said. “That’s $50,000 down the toilet as far as I can tell.”

Rawlings, while noting that “this is a serious matter and kind of somber,” said that “we should be doing high fives. Congratulations to the city of Dallas. We’re growing. We’ve got hot properties.”

More than gates, the city of Dallas needs to make sure that airlines maximize the use for the most takeoff and landings, the mayor said. He pointed in particular to United Airlines, which holds the lease on two gates in the new 20-gate terminal

“I’m disappointed on what’s happening from the United gates. They’re not using the landing slots. We have three airlines that want to come in here and do this and we’ve got to figure out how to make that happen,” Rawlings said.

Twelve gates of the 20-gate terminal are open and occupied by Southwest. The remaining eight, including Southwest’s other four, American’s two and United’s two, are to be ready by Oct. 13, the date when flight limits are lifted and carriers can fly nonstop from Love Field to any other U.S. airport.

Sitting in the audience were the chief executive officers of Southwest, Gary Kelly, and Virgin America, David Cush. They watched but did not speak during the council briefing.

“I wasn’t surprised there was no decision on the spot today,” Kelly said afterwards. “This was a briefing. In some ways, it’s a complex issue. There are legal questions. I think the council made clear that they wanted to review those and be thorough. I don’t know what they’re thinking or what they’ve decided yet, so we’ll just stay tuned for A.C. Gonzalez’s decision on Friday.”

“He will make a decision by Friday,” Cush said, “and we look forward to hearing that decision. We don’t have anything else to say. Everything that can be said on this subject has been said, and now it’s their decision.”

Asked about his airline’s confidence they’ll get the gates, Cush said: “We’ve been confident since Day One.”

CORRECTION: Earlier version of this story misspelled Philip Kingston’s name, a mistake we regret.

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Terry Maxon writes about items of interest to travelers and the aviation community.